darkness a white sheet appeared spread before the path and beneath the wheels of the buggy, which, when withdrawn with a reluctant hiss, seemed striving to drag the exhausted beach seaward with it.  But the blind terror of her horse, who swerved at every sweep of the surge, shamed her own half superstitious fears, and with the effort to control his alarm she regained her own self-possession, albeit with eyelashes wet not altogether with the salt spray from the sea.  This was followed by a reaction, perhaps stimulated by her victory over the beaten animal, when for a time, she knew not how long, she felt only a mad sense of freedom and power, oblivious of even her sorrows, her lost home and husband, and with intense feminine consciousness she longed to be a man.  She was scarcely aware that the track turned again inland until the beat of the horse’s hoofs on the firm ground and an acceleration of speed showed her she had left the beach and the mysterious sea behind her, and she remembered that she was near the end of the first stage of her journey.  Half an hour later the twinkling lights of the roadside inn where she was to change horses rose out of the darkness.

Happily for her, the hostler considered the horse, who had a local reputation, of more importance than the unknown muffled figure in the shadow of the unfurled hood, and confined his attention to the animal.  After a careful examination of his feet and a few comments addressed solely to the superior creation, he led him away.  Mrs. Tucker would have liked to part more affectionately from her four-footed compatriot, and felt a sudden sense of loneliness at the loss of her new friend, but a recollection of certain cautions of Captain Poindexter’s kept her mute.  Nevertheless, the hostler’s ostentatious adjuration of “Now then, aren’t you going to bring out that mustang for the Senora?” puzzled her.  It was not until the fresh horse was put to, and she had flung a piece of gold into the attendant’s hand, that the “Gracias” of his unmistakable Saxon speech revealed to her the reason of the lawyer’s caution.  Poindexter had evidently represented her to these people as a native Californian who did not speak English.  In her inconsistency her blood took fire at this first suggestion of deceit, and burned in her face.  Why should he try to pass her off as anybody else?  Why should she not use her own, her husband’s name?  She stopped and bit her lip.

It was but the beginning of an uneasy train of thought.  She suddenly found herself thinking of her visitor, Calhoun Weaver, and not pleasantly.  He would hear of their ruin to-morrow, perhaps of her own flight.  He would remember his visit, and what would he think of her deceitful frivolity?  Would he believe that she was then ignorant of the failure?  It was her first sense of any accountability to others than herself, but even then it was rather owing to an uneasy consciousness of what her husband must feel if he were subjected to the criticisms of men like